10:47 p.m. - 2020-09-09
Wheels up
Back from my mini-vacation. Not sure how much I have the energy to write about tonight though.
I took today off of work because I was stuck with all the smoke in the valley reading contradictory weather reports, and wasn't sure if I could fly my plane out vfr or not. It sucks not being instrument current! So I decided to just go to the airport with Rainbow and check it out for myself. I spoke to a pilot who just flew in from OR and he said it was fine up there and had no idea why Fresno was reporting a ceiling. So Rainbow and I took a quick flight up close to Madera and circled to 4,500... it looked fine, I could still see the ground so decided to just go ahead, grab my napsack from my folk's and fly home.
The flight was marginal the entire way through the smoke with an orange sun leading me SW. But where I really fucked up was on the landing. I did a 20mile straight in and forgot to lower my gear until I noticed 10 feet above the runway! I gave it power, retracted 10 degrees of flaps and got ready to climb out..then I dropped the gear and just decided to land.
I can't believe myself! I was always stunned at how pilots can forget to put their gear down and now I almost met the same fate they had.
The problem is usually those long straight ins that unless your shooting an approach, you don't have your usual points of setting , power, flaps and gear as you do when you do the usual downwind/base/final. And another really huge problem is why didn't my gear horn go off!!??!!! It is supposed to go off with full flaps and throttle off and it didn't..so I need to check on that and come up with a new plan for myself. I just keep replaying what happened over and over again in my head and wondering how I could have almost totalled my plane! Then I imagine what if I did and how I would have handled that, but I just need to stop!
Another disappointment is that the power is out in my trailer, except for an emergency light and I can't find a circuit box. All this shit has to happen the minute I go out of town..I come back to dead plants, and the litter box over flowing like nobody else lives here. Ugh!!
I just wasn't ready to put money down into fixing up my trailer. I wanted to wait a few more paychecks so I can pay off this trip first.
I am still processing all that happened and didn't happen during my vacation. All I can say is that each trip I take whether it turns out good, or bad is that I learn a lot about myself.
This wasn't a totally comfortable trip for me mainly because all the weird vibes I get from others living in the new brave world of Covid. It was just totally awkward and uncomfortable trying to be on a camping trip with everyone having to wear mask..really fucked up!
I rediscovered I still suck in social situations and prefer to run and hide whenever I find myself in them. I have a hard time reading people because I sometimes pick up contradictory messages from their body language versus the vibes they give off. I still end up clicking with Aries people and they usually end up driving me crazy! Oh and I totally love spending time alone, exploring new places alone, and even going out to eat by myself! So really I have no fear of ever being alone, that's good. Come to think of it I feel most alone in a group of people where everyone is talking to each other in front of me like I'm totally invisible! That's when I bolt and I need to get to the root about it!
I'll write more details about this trip tomorrow, I need to go to sleep and start processing all this stuff now...
